With something like THAT in place, I'd be spending a lot more time in open, either taking on escort duties in a combat ship or running trade with hired guns to back me up.
I'm all for better ways for players to interact, including what you have proposed. But, apart from a handful of players that go out of their way to create interaction, I doubt those systems would have much effect; I simply can't see enough players creating or reading those requests.
It reminds me of all the grouping tools Blizzard attempted to create in WoW, before the LFD's current incarnation. Some were very good, but they all required players to travel to where the group would act, and most only provided a help while requiring players to manually assemble the group, like your proposal; each and every one of them failed to make a difference.
This is a huge issue that keeps coming up. I can understand why they went down the path they did. But it's still ultimately somewhat of a roadblock to many suggestions that have been put forward.
Which, unless you assume that they didn't properly thought about the consequences of the system, points to the devs not being much interested in implementing those suggestions from the start.
The peer to peer networking system has disadvantages, true. But, as long as you assume that every player has the right to choose who he will play with, to exclude others from playing with him at will, then most of the disadvantages of the system can be discarded.
And much of what the devs have said about the multiplayer system, from the start, is exactly that the players have the freedom to choose who they play with.
Of course, that simple feature influences and shapes many aspects of the game. For example, there is no way to prevent players from going somewhere, from trading with some faction or station; no way to force them into PvP interactions, to engage someone that truly wants to avoid adversarial play and is willing to forgo player contact in order to have that. It's not perfect for those that want control over when they can be subject to PvP because meeting random players is kept hostage of the official game mode where PvP can happen, but it does mean that no player that is willing to forgo meeting random strangers can ever be forced to engage in PvP.
Wasn't the point of PP to make ED somewhat competitive?? You pledge to a faction and complete tasks so that your 'team' advances?
Competitive through indirect means. PvP was never required.
Personally I will never truly "pledge" myself to any "team". If, or when, I decide to "take part" in Powerplay, I will use whichever team I "join" to get whichever rewards the devs locked behind its grind while ignoring the competitive aspect. And if anyone demands me to go do some specific task for the "team", I will put that player on ignore.
Of course, I hated Powerplay from the first time it was announced; antagonistic gameplay coupled with exclusive rewards is a sure way to turn my disposition sour, and more so in a game that uses "play your way" as a marketing push. And I doubt there is any way to ever change it to please me, since I dislike the very core concept of Powerplay.
It is partly competetive. I mean, you would probably like to progress faster than your opponents (whoever they may be), don't you?
Why should I even care? What do I get out of beating others, be it at direct PvP or at indirect stuff like progressing faster?
What I don't want, in a game that was sold as promoting player choice, is for either one mode to be elected as the one true way to play the game, or restrictions on how one can play being implemented. Hence my opposition against any kind of extra incentive or bonus for playing in Open, as well as against any restriction on mode changing.
BTW, when I took the GamerDNA test, my competitiveness score ended negative
(And my Killer score ended at zero, which is the lowest it can go. As far as intent to pound other players go, it's hard to be more carebear than me.)
